


Memory Pools

by lycchi



Category: Butterfly Soup (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Introspection, Kinda?, Romance, Slow Burn, but just not rn, eventual pee pee ketchup man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2020-10-16 23:17:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20611001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lycchi/pseuds/lycchi
Summary: Noelle navigates emotional constipation. Akarsha experiences feelings. Feelings are difficult.





	1. all I understand is that I don't understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noelle has emotional constipation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work title comes from Foxes in Fiction's Memory Pools. Chapter title comes from the math rock song by toe. A follow-up of sorts to Misread and rerun, likewise taking place in first-year of high school, a few months post-canon. Multi-parter with alternating POV.
> 
> Content warning for internalized lesbophobia. Take care as needed.

After the team's celebration at Bombay Garden, Saturday afternoons routinely turned into study, 'hang-out' sessions of some sort (ideally, with an emphasis on the former). But aside from it keeping baseball a secret (and getting away from her parents), on certain days, Noelle's pretend-tutor spiel operated as a means of helping Min and Diya sneak-off on dates. Today was one of those days. 

When Akarsha first showed up with Diya, at first she was worried she wouldn't be able to get anything done, knowing how Akarsha could be, but she was pleasantly surprised by how long they could go in silence. Though, maybe she didn't need to be surprised. Both of them experienced a very similar pressure from their parents. And it was the library, after all.

Occasionally she'd stop to glance at Akarsha. Because she _had_ to, keep an eye on her that is...

Across from her, Akarsha sat inattentively with her binder and math textbook open in front of her, nervously twirling her ballpoint pen. 

From the looks of it, Akarsha had stopped reviewing material for the upcoming math test and had taken to spacing-out. Noelle's gaze followed the line of downcast eyes, tipped eyelashes, nose downturned, pursed lips and eventually caught onto the quiet, rhythmic movement at the crevice of neck to shoulder.

Inhale, exhale, exhale.

Something about the gentle rises and the less-than-gentle, stifled falls had caught Noelle's attention.

Inhale,

exhale,

exhale...

...

Now _s__he _was the one spacing-out.

She needed to stop. She needed to focus on her work. 

But at some point, Akarsha's eyes had already met hers and all she could do was waver.

"Where do you think the two of them went?" Akarsha broke the silence with a question about Min and Diya's present whereabouts.

Knowing her, she was going to break it sooner or later, but Noelle didn't really mind having a normal conversation with her. Whatever it was, she'd hear her out.

"By process of elimination, probably a dog park. But it's not like it matters, as long as Diya is happy and Min doesn't do anything _too_ stupid." Noelle reached for her water bottle. An hour in silence had left her with a dry throat. Though, it probably also had something to do with the low humidity of the library. 

"...Hey, have you ever thought about how Min literally wanted to kill you because she saw you as a love rival. That's so...anime."

Noelle felt water going down the wrong pipe and quickly fell into a coughing fit--an unintentionally dramatic response to Akarsha's words that culminated in Noelle's first warning of the day from library staff. It took a moment for Noelle to compose herself, but of course, the aftermath of choking on a liquid tends to feel much longer than a 'moment.' 

"That's ridiculous! Min was being ridiculous. We were just friends and Diya was the one who got attached first."

"Uhh, mmhmm..." without needing to hear a coherent sentence, Noelle could see where this was going.

"That's nonsensical and biased. I--Don't group me with you." She needed to clear up any potential doubt. Just because they were classmates, friends, it didn't mean they were the same. 

"Ayyy, you got the 'bi' part right," Akarsha motioned towards Noelle with finger-guns. "Anyway, my 'bi-ass' has to go. The swamp calls. Don't miss me too much, Frenchman."

"You mean your parents? Didn't you say your parents took away your phone?" 

"...Anyway, only shooting stars break the mold - Shakespeare. Adieu." Akarsha spouted ominously as she took her leave, moving her body in-reverse and crashing into the door on her way out. 

"THAT'S NOT-- SHAKESPEARE ISN'T EVEN FRENCH!"

The librarian gave Noelle a final warning.

She'd be there for approximately two more hours, she'd turn her attention back to studying until Min and Diya returned from their date. Diya would go home first, leaving Noelle alone with Min, who she knew would be too ecstatic from her date with Diya to do a good job pretending she was there learning. But their respective parents would come by to pick them up, they would be fooled, by the impossibility of her and Min having anything in common, let alone friendship.

Everyone would go their separate ways. 

\--

'It's easy to despise what you cannot have.'

It feels stupid, that of all the things that stick with you, it's the moral of some fable you were forced to read as a child, while you watched other kids get to be kids.

The absurdity of being left with a lump in your throat and the need to reenforce logic, put things in order and express necessary comprehension was Noelle's constant through lukewarm interactions with her parents, but aside from leaving her with a lingering resentment, she was only filled with accumulating doubt. Of course there were things in the world she had no need to feel any uncertainty about, like the laws of mathematics, but at moments like this, they only juxtaposed with the bundle of uncertainty that remained in the back of her throat, to be avoided and neglected, until it faded into nothing, like it was supposed to.

The notion that she would benefit from rejecting others, rejecting fun in the long-term... but what was in the long-term?

She knew that she was never going to be able to satisfy her parents' desires in the long-run. It was thanks to her acknowledgment of this that she did something she would never do--joining their newly-formed, high-school baseball team. But what did she want? (...Who did she want?) The world as she understood it revealed itself in unexpected ways. Whether or not she wanted to admit it, answers didn't appear. What others felt, didn't immediately make sense. How she felt didn't make sense, not like it was supposed to.

Min's return and Diya's realizations, led Noelle down a rabbit hole of her own. Diya's out-of-sorts behaviour, Akarsha's (still erroneous) comment about Min being Diya's ex, Min's mostly unwarranted but reciprocated hatred, it made sense.

A bit of internet research to confront her confusion about her friend's situation became something much more, revealing the lump in her throat from childhood to have transformed and made a quiet burrow in the pit of her stomach, small as ever, but nonetheless _there_, with its occasional fluttering.

Diya was special to her. She was, without a doubt, her best friend; they were inseparable enough that they frequently passed colds onto one another. Noelle was serious about her threat to end Min if she hurt Diya. And while she came to understand Min and the sincereness of her love for Diya, to the point of offering her 'Diya expertise,' that's where it needed to end, where the line needed to be drawn.

...Maybe it was a little late to say it had 'nothing' to do with her when she had already implicated herself by agreeing to keep up the lie, continuing to play baseball and pretending to be Min's private tutor. Noelle knew something was bound to go wrong at some point in the 'unforeseeable' future, somebody would find out, something would happen, but it wasn't like she had it in her to be the bearer of bad news. She had a feeling Min and Diya already knew what they were getting themselves into. If anything, by extension, _she_ was doing something stupid by involving herself in something evidently and inevitably messy, but that wasn't a line of logic Noelle was prepared to follow or deal with.

At least not right now. 

"Ugh." 

Noelle plopped on her bed, face-first, resting her head against Snakey.

\--

That night, Noelle dreams. 

In the world of dreams, time sweeps in--a multitude of currents pulling your body apart in different directions, of past, future, present. 

It leaks in and out of your pores--a refracted and distilled, glistening salt water.

And you become conscious of the smell and taste of memory.

You desire to be unaffected and stoic in its unwavering presence, but it is a saltiness that fails to be subdued.

Instead, it usurps you of every ounce of oxygen remaining in your body.

And you feel yourself sink, as if your extremities have been filled with lead.

You feel your body grasping for air that has already escaped. 

You feel salt water trickle down your nostrils and into your throat, filling your lungs.

You feel yourself curl inwards.

You feel yourself become like soup, slippery--a bitter, sweet herbal that salt only seems to enhance. 

The viscosity fills you with overwhelming fear and dread, but also a strange sense of relief.

And a version of you forms. 

She is forming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't claim to know anything about sports. I do, however, know that the best way to avoid ever getting hit in the head by a baseball is to not play baseball. If this is not an option, bring a bike helmet.
> 
> But also maybe a bike so you can get the hell out of there.
> 
> I have a public Butterfly Soup Spotify playlist (searchable by name and linked to the username with the weird garble of letters and numbers). Follow for ~2008 throwbacks, math rock, hip gay hits, weeb tunes, bedroom pop.


	2. thinking about u (jk)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akarsha experiences feelings. Feelings are difficult. That's rough, buddy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from the song by In Love with a Ghost. 
> 
> This took longer than I thought it would, because I mostly just wrote down jokes that I wanted to include instead of producing an actually coherent outline. I came up with that bi pun from previous chapter before I finished writing almost everything else. I might make edits in the first 48-ish hours of posting.
> 
> Every time I post something, I get worse at coming up with cool, attention-grabbing summaries, so I've given up! : )

Akarsha often found herself frozen in-place. If you don't say or do anything, nothing will happen. Doing nothing meant you couldn't fail, because you were never really trying. But jokes were a loophole, a pivot away from inaction. Maybe her jokes didn't always land the way she wanted them to, but it was her way-out. She could do and say as much as she needed in order to avoid being taken _too_ seriously, while creating the illusion of being okay even when she clearly wasn't.

But _was_ she going to be okay?? Was she going to amount to a semblance of something that her parents didn't find disappointing?

Akarsha had no fucking clue. The worst part about it was that when her parents do find her disappointing, they liked to joke around while still making it obvious how they really felt. Jokes, they were _her _thing. How else was she supposed to make herself feel better, or at least pretend to? There was already plenty for them to feel disappointed about, but she needed to be _something_, to do _something_, at least. Not knowing what she was doing while constantly surrounded by peers who had their shit together, at least more than she did, made her feel worse. And even if they didn't have their shit together, they sure were good at making it look like they did.

Aside from lactose-intolerance, the one thing, like, 80% of their school population had in-common was stress about grades. And, honestly, she was probably lowballing it with the percentage.

"Fake it 'til you make it," maybe that should be their new school motto. And maybe, while they're at it, they should make her the new principal since their school was so out-of-the-loop. Every time Akarsha had to see those posters about 'reducing stress,' she screamed a little inside, but also sometimes for real. Like, really?? What a joke. 

They were young, they should be allowed to make mistakes and be messes, but everyone's so afraid of being punished, rejected or disowned, you end up with a bunch of emotionally-guarded, competitive kids. Not that she was the one to talk. Her way of being guarded was just less obvious and 'in-your-face'... by being in-your-face. But when she couldn't keep up with her classmates and her siblings, she cheated. Even after she stopped, in-part thanks to Min's support when she was mid-breakdown, Akarsha was somehow still stuck with the occasional pangs of guilt of having done it at all. If anything, it meant her parents and the school system had fucked up too, but they made it work, because all the fault still fell on her; they weren't the ones constantly on the verge of a breakdown. 

It was depressing to think about, but the blood was already on her hands. ......Like it was (literally) that time she fended-off Min, which, in hindsight, also.... wasn't.....great. (Woops, it looked like it was time to never use that idiom ever again.)

Really, she was just navigating the world how she could best, by being a piece of trash.

Akarsha knew that it was all dumb; she did a lot of dumb shit, but what else was she to do??

There was so much in her life she had no control over, so if shit's gonna happen, at least it'd be on her own terms, right? She'd get out of potentially troublesome situations by creating her own equally troublesome diversions. And that'd be 'something' at least.

She did a lot of shit that probably wasn't so great in hindsight. Even if she thought it was clever at the time (...and still kinda did), it was pretty dumb that she rigged the fire alarm to play the Mario theme; it was dumb that she pulled it at all. If her parents found out, they'd be _pissed_. They'd also be pissed if they found out she was playing baseball, which had also required her to forge her mom's signature--another thing for them to be angry about. They'd be disappointed that she wasn't straight. They'd probably ask her if she was just confused; Akarsha was confused about a lot of things, just not the things they were thinking of. They'd be pissed and disappointed about a lot of things. They'd be pissed and disappointed enough that they'd slip up and wouldn't be able to hide it without the use of some detached humorous remark, an off-hand joke and a hand that held her at a safe distance away from them. Jokes would fail to be enough to aid the situation and they'd fail to be enough for her too. They've already failed to be enough time and time again.

Yet, despite the anxieties they induced, jokes were a constant. They were the one constant in her life she could lean into, to make her life less garbage-y.

But Akarsha found herself frozen in-place again.

Noelle wasn't even her first crush, she was just the newest in a line of several. But time made it apparent how much easier it was to crush on people who you weren't that close to--attractive walls who you barely knew or refused to acknowledge your existence at all. She hit on people--she hit on her friends, everyone--at least half-jokingly and half-heartedly enough that real rejection wasn't on the table. Sure, she'd still be disappointed that they wouldn't reciprocate, but, like, in a chill enough way that she could just move onto having a crush on the next unreachable wall. Escapism for gross, strange goblins. There were no hard feelings. At least, there weren't supposed to be.

(Hot tip: if you really want to torture a self-conscious goblin, put them in an inescapable maze made out of mirrors.)

Initially, Akarsha had only bugged Noelle as a joke because of how easily she reacted to everything and how ridiculously uptight she was. Before they became friends, admittedly, Akarsha had been jealous of how easily academic success came to Noelle. It annoyed her. She was the book-smart daughter every Asian mom and dad would pay money to have; she was intelligent AND still managed to look pretty despite being a complete nerd with zero fashion-sense, but of course it had come at a cost. It always does. 

But after carefully watching her reactions to her jokes the first month of school--sticking a magnet to her forehead, calling her a replicant and leaving a trail of sticky notes reading "boob"--and witnessing her outburst upon finding one of said notes in her textbook right in the middle of class, she knew Noelle was a keeper.

She grew on her and quickly, to say the least.

And the first sparks of a crush had settled and turned into something else, leaving Akarsha with flutters in the pit of her stomach.

...Why Noelle of all people?

Why did she have to like her??

Noelle went on about how ridiculous she thought Akarsha was, but that never stopped her from interacting with her. By association, she was _just as_ ridiculous.

The antics she came up with just to get back at her: the toilet water, the library tag, everything. Maniacal, calculated. Ridiculous. The fact that Min's nickname for her "mean green bean" and the description "emotionally-constipated" somehow managed to describe Noelle to a T. How she was mean, blunt and had a habit of looking down on other people; she was a real piece of work. Ridiculous. The fact that she went around claiming how little she cared, despite it being clear as day to literally everyone on the planet how much she cared. Ridiculous. ...But also how cute it was when she tried really hard not to smile, laugh and be 'out-of-character,' and it slipped out anyways. And how goofy she looked when she was concentrating really hard on something and furrowed her eyebrows too much. And also how pretty she looked with her hair down once every blue moon. That paint splot-like mole under her eye she once stuck a googly eye onto (Akarsha was thinking of putting a heart sticker on it next time, just in time for Valentines, festive). ...Ridiculous... How she hated being wrong; she _always_ had to be right. The fact that she couldn't not correct other people, even when they were the slightest bit off, yet, somehow, at the right moments knew when to hold back... How she still responded to her no matter how over-the-top she got, reassuring Akarsha that she was never 'too much,' even when she was. The fact that Noelle was an attentive friend, who wanted to do better than what her parents had taught her. She still had a ways to go, but, really, they _all_ had a ways to go. Her parents had metaphorically thrown her screw balls they knew she wouldn't be able to catch, and _everybody_ knows how much she sucks at sports, but there she was, part of a baseball team. Akarsha couldn't say that was ridiculous, even if it still kinda was, 'cause it's not like she was some kind of an athlete either. 

When she was with Noelle, who really should have been more boring and annoying for her stuck-up ways, Akarsha had fun. Her antics with Noelle, they were part of a routine that made her everyday more bearable. 

Except, that overused trope where the gay friend has a thing for their straight friend, every straight homophobe's worst nightmare? It was her bi nightmare, only, not exactly. It was more complicated than that.

With Noelle, occasionally, Akarsha tossed in a pick-up line or two, just to test the waters. Were they good pick-up lines? Yes........... and no. Believe it or not, she worked really hard on that "sodium fine" line, but of course Frenchman had to ruin it by explaining humans couldn't be entirely composed of salt (...as far as she knew, at least). Now, that was _real_ disappointment.

But there were also moments where Akarsha thought she felt something ping, the very same moments she could also feel her heart sink--caught-up in lingering stares and unreciprocated gazes. She has seen the way Noelle has watched Diya, half-leaning against Min due to the latter being a total shortie in comparison, only for her to turn away and into herself in silence. Akarsha was uncertain, but maybe Noelle was too? She couldn't really discount that, even though it'd be tempting if she didn't know her as well as she did. Akarsha wanted to understand, but sometimes gazes weren't enough, they wavered, they shifted, they were uneven, disjointed, unclear; they didn't always reach.

Unspoken words only seemed to bring on a whole other layer of anxiety and ambiguity to every situation.

Jokes, sometimes they'd fail and she'd falter. Or she would falter despite jokes, but they were what she had. They had their limits, but they were inventive, they were _something_. Otherwise, what else could she do?? How could she navigate and make sense of this crapsack world? 

\--

Akarsha sent Diya her usual morning messages, letting her know she would be outside, waiting for her to walk to school together. This was another routine. 

**albret einstong: **ayy diya 

**albret einstong: **ayyy

**albret einstong: **ay. 

**Diya: **...what? 

**albret einstong: **what do you call a bisexual person not in a relationship? 

**Diya:** ??? single?

**albret einstong: **All-Bi-Myself xD

**Diya has gone offline.**

**\--**

After a few minutes, Diya rushed out the door and began walking quickly, forcing Akarsha to make an extra effort to catch up.

But it was time to share the gift of knowledge. 

"Did you know catfish have 100,000 taste buds all over the entirety of its body? It's like, a giant tongue, but also still a fish."

"...Sounds fake."

Of course Diya was going to say that. 

"Fake?!" 

Caught up in the silence of shuffling feet, Akarsha's thoughts returned to the mess in her head.

Maybe she could tell Diya? .....No, she might blab to Noelle. Was she willing to take that chance?

......She was going to have to think about whether to tell Diya for a while longer.

Or maybe she could tell Chryssa, or Liz? They seemed like they had their shit together, but they were seniors, so of course it 'seemed' like they did. Maybe she could say she was asking for advice for a friend of a friend?

...No, no one ever believes that and they'd probably just narrow it down.

Or she could tell someone else on the team? But it's not like she had a lot of options. 

Min. ...Maybe she could tell Min?

Society sure had a way of making you feel isolated, until you weren't actually alone.

Distracted by her thoughts, one of Akarsha's flip-flops got caught in a crack in the sidewalk. Before she could do anything, Akarsha tripped and landed on the ground in a near-catastrophic manner. 

"OW-- I mean, p-parkour." 

Diya stared at her disapprovingly and when she saw that Akarsha was okay, she continued walking ahead.

...Damn, before she did anything else, she really needed to come up with new material.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing Butterfly Soup as someone who grew up around the same time as its characters is interesting, because it's both filled the things you can only realize with hindsight while also affirming the experiences of lgbt+ asian youth as they occur in real-time. The former can be a particularly cathartic. Food for my tired, lactose-intolerant gaysian soul.
> 
> Next chapter update will be in a month, hopefully. I want to write some fun interactions! Take care.
> 
> Next chapter: Min and Noelle bond over their lactose-intolerance. Min wonders why soy milk tastes suspiciously like tofu.


	3. In the Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's lunch hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the song by Kina Grannis. I wrote the next-next (?) chapter before this one, but just wanted a fun (??) interaction between the characters. 
> 
> I expanded the end of the first chapter and highly suggest returning to it before continuing forward, because it'll be important later!! I'm sorry to anybody who has ever clicked amid me moving chunks of text around. I've never written a multi-chapter narrative and it shows. 
> 
> Please consider supporting me @ ko-fi.com/lycchi and help an early 20-something keep doing what she's doing. Anything is appreciated!
> 
> CW for detailed descriptions of food and eating. As usual, subject to major edits in the first 48-ish hours.

Lunchtime was a lull in the day. It was supposed to be the least stressful.

Students gathered with their friend circles, some skipped eating entirely to study in the library, the rare few who lived nearby went home for lunch. ...With permission, of course, unless they were willing to be an unlawful truant. 

Noelle, Diya, Min and Akarsha were eating at their usual table, outside. Rarely was the weather terrible enough that they were forced to have lunch indoors.

Today, Noelle's lunch consisted of leftover white rice, stir-fried bitter melon and pork and radish soup, as well as grapes.

She could taste the fish oil her mother had added to soup, a flavour that seemed to coat every subsequent bite of the pork bone and daikon-infused liquid in a manner that was neither entirely pleasant nor unpleasant.

It was a flavour that had become very familiar in Noelle's diet very early on in her life.

Some of her earliest memories consisted of being fed spoons of it directly from the bottle in the mornings before attending Montessori school. 

But, while omega-3 fatty acids certainly had important health benefits, did her mother genuinely believe that it would help her daughter in her studies?

No matter how many bottles of fish oil she seemed to ingest, the pressure her parents put on her never seemed to decrease, not even as a placebo effect. In fact, over time, the taste of fish oil only seemed to remind Noelle of her disappointment upon discovering how little control her parents would ever permit she have over her life _and_ her disappointment for failing to recognize the truth sooner.

If anything, disappointment and longing was the taste of home, a flavour with a legacy that preceded her.

She doesn't know when, where and how it all began, but to her, it felt like a sign, telling her that she really shouldn't waste her time on wishful thinking--lingering on a past that has already happened, that nobody could change, even if they so wished.

If her parents could change anything, they would probably limit her freedom even more than they already do. But still, she wanted to say that the things her parents did were for a reason, that it was all worthwhile.

She hadn't lived long enough to know the 'truths' of the world, but truthfully, it often felt like she would never be able to live long enough to know better. Her parents had a way of making her feel both simultaneously like a toddler and an old woman who has roamed the earth for far too long, endlessly tired of all of the nagging, but also unable to do anything but nag. 

So, instead, Noelle found pleasure in the bland taste and dull floral perfume of white jasmine rice.

Oftentimes, she found herself dumping it in her soup in order to subdue its stronger, saltier flavour and that fishy aftertaste and make it more palatable. 

She opened her tin container filled with rice and carefully dumped it into her soup-filled thermos. With a spoon, Noelle swirled the rice around in the broth and covered to let it soak for five minutes, until it took on a consistency that was similar to _xifan_. Thanks to the vacuum seal always giving her a difficult time, as usual Noelle made sure to only lightly twist the cover shut--a preventative measure. 

The bitter melon, however, remained untouched.

To say that Noelle didn't "particularly enjoy" bitter melon was definitely an understatement.

It wasn't even that Noelle disliked vegetables, or, more accurately, anything that was considered 'vegetable-adjacent'. Veggies were water-dense after all and therefore tended to be naturally mild in flavour.

Bitter melon, on the other hand, was terrible in an almost-blatant, offensive manner. 

...No, it _was _blatantly terrible.

Its name signified suffering across a multitude of languages. 

Even Diya, who was far from a picky eater, disliked bitter melon.

Noelle still remembers the first time she shared some from her lunch with Diya. Despite giving her plenty forewarning, Diya instead teased her for her bland tastes in food and took a bite anyway. ...Needless to say, she regretted not taking Noelle's warning seriously.

But there was no point in avoiding what was in front of her.

Not wanting to waste food, all Noelle could do was avoid chewing and quickly swallow the pieces of the terrible gourd.

She tried her best not to cringe upon encountering inevitable traces of bitter across her tongue, but wasn't doing a particularly great job at not letting her distaste show. ...Well, at least she'd be able to experience some of its health benefits. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Noelle could see Akarsha staring and smiling in her direction rather dumbly.

...Kind of. 

She quickly swallowed the thought before it could fully form. 

Noelle turned to face Akarsha and glared directly at her, quickly eliciting a response from the other girl.

"W-WHOA, dude. Uh, I-- why are you glaring daggers at me?? ...You're hitting me, right in the _kokoro,_" Akarsha mimicked a knife going through her heart, "OOF." 

"You know, if you have something to say, you should just say it," Noelle continued to address her with suspicion. 

"I dunno, I guess, why do you... what I mean is, _that_. Yeah, that! Why do you eat that when you clearly hate it?" Akarsha asked, pointing a finger at the container of stir-fried bitter melon. "Like...You have this weird, funny, disturbed look on your face the whole time, like you're experiencing all five stages of grief at once, or something. You could just throw it in the trash and nobody would ever have to know." She shrugged in a nonchalant, if not somewhat staggered manner.

...She was still acting suspicious, but at least appeared to have a genuine curiosity.

"I have to agree with Akarsha. Its name doesn't lie, tastes gross. Too bitter," said Diya with a disgusted expression on her face, not unlike the one she made after tasting the gourd for the first time. 

Min nodded her head in agreement, as if to the tune of a song only she could hear. "Yeah, yeah. All of the above."

"Min, that phrase doesn't work the same way in real life as it does on quizzes," Noelle gave her a judgemental-look. 

"Whatever, Einstein." Min crudely stuck up her middle finger at Noelle.

"...You have the worst manners." Noelle sighed in annoyance and turned her attention back to the originator of the topic. "And Akarsha... I really shouldn't have to tell you this, but you can't just eat junk food. Vegetable intake is important. It helps maintain optimal bodily functions."

"Pfff, you mean, like taking a dump??" 

"Yes... And no. Ugh, what I mean is you could die by not consuming the nutrients your body requires to stay alive. Anyway, just because I dislike something doesn't mean it lacks nutritional value."

...Though, honestly, Noelle would be lying if she said she wouldn't try to pawn the bitter melon off on someone. It was both unfortunate and unsurprising that no one at their table liked it.

Akarsha snorted and waved Noelle off. "Yeah, whatever you say, _mom_."

"...You really are incorrigible."

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words can't hurt me if I don't know what they mean, Frenchman!" Akarsha grinned and made a show of shrugging exaggeratedly. 

At her silly gesture, Noelle turned back to her lunch and quickly gulped down another piece of bitter melon.

She pulled the plastic baggy of grapes out of her lunch bag and began carefully counting what remained.

...One, two, three, 

four, five, six, 

seven, eight, nine 

ten, eleven, 

twelve and thirteen... 

There were eighteen this morning, which meant Diya must have snuck five before classes started.

Noelle set three grapes aside for herself.

In the empty rice container, Noelle scooped some of the now-softened and thickened rice and soup concoction and slid it across the table, along with the baggy containing the rest of the grapes, over to Diya.

She made sure to exclude the bitter melon, of course.

"!! Thanks, Noelle!"

Diya opened the baggy and popped a handful of the grapes into her mouth and proceeded to quickly gobble up the rice-soup mixture. 

With that, Noelle began eating the remainder of the concoction from her thermos with her chopsticks.

Diagonally across from her, Min sipped the remainder of her chocolate-flavoured soy milk loudly, crushing the carton in the process, until all she could do was chew on her straw pointlessly, as she always seemed to make a habit of doing.

...It was both bewildering and unsurprising that Min somehow never pieced together the 'mysterious' reason behind soy milk's 'disturbingly' similar taste to tofu until a recent lunchtime conversation that required Noelle's unwilling intervention unless she wanted the conversation to regress into something far more ridiculous. But, at the end of the day, Noelle was unable to prevent its fall into a complete and utter buffoonery (of which she didn't want to admit she had any role in producing), leading to their discussion of conspiracy theories around lactose-intolerance, the cow-milk industry, soy bean farms and Asian supermarkets. According to Min, parents forcing their kids to eat tofu from a young age had caused widespread lactose-intolerance in Asians even in America.

And, as if she was only just coming to the realization that more soy milk wouldn't just magically appear because she wanted more, Min stretched out her arm and threw the carton in the direction of the nearest recycling bin.

As usual, she sunk the landing with an unnerving level of accuracy. 

...But what was the point of Min practically destroying the carton when she was going to recycle it anyway?

Noelle really had no idea how Min's brain worked and she wasn't planning on trying to understand how it worked any time soon.

"Looks like I still got it!" Min visibly pumped her fist into the air.

"That was really cool, Min!" said Diya. 

It's not like Diya was difficult to impress, but Min continued to smile smugly at her words of praise. 

Noelle sighed. "Of course you 'still got it.' You're our team's pitcher. I'd like to hope 'you still got it'..."

"Wow, thanks for the compliment, man!"

"That wasn't--"

But just as Noelle was about to refute her statement, Min reached across the table and took one of her grapes, popping it in her mouth before she could do anything.

"...HEY. You should ask before you take people's things."

Min merely shrugged at Noelle's words. "I either take from you or Diya. Who do you think I gotta choose??" 

"Min, if you wanted grapes too, I could have shared with you. Apologize to Noelle," said Diya.

Min sighed loudly. "...Alright." She turned to look Noelle in the eyes, "I'm sorry, but also not really."

"...Min." Diya glared at her. 

"...FINE. I'm sorry, for real this time, you got it?!" 

Noelle accepted the sub-par apology, knowing that this was as good as it was going to get, at least for now. 

"Good." Diya opened the baggy and fed Min a grape.

It was kind of like watching someone give their pet dog a treat. 

"Hey, me too! Let me feed you." Min grabbed the bag and took one of the grapes from the bag. "Say ahh." 

"O-okay... Ahh." 

Akarsha whistled at the sight in front of them. "Just get a room, you two."

...Yuck.

"HEY, YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR FACE OR YOU'RE DEAD."

Paying no attention to Min's threat, Akarsha turned to address Noelle.

"Hey Noelle, I have something to show you."

Noelle eyed her with suspicion. "...What now?"

"Look at the sky!" 

"Huh?" Noelle tilted her head upwards. 

The sky... was blue. It was mostly clear, with a few clouds sprinkled here and there.

The sun wasn't unbearably bright (as it sometimes was) thanks to the optimal location of their table.

...What was the point of any of this--

"WAIT."

But by the time Noelle looked down, only one grape remained in front of her. 

Next to her, she could see Akarsha quickly swallowing something, as if doing so somehow absolved her of any guilt of the obvious crime she just committed. 

"AKARSHA." 

"Who?? You mean... me??" 

"DON'T PLAY DUMB. I know you did it." 

"You can't convict me without evidence!! I know my rights!" 

"Diya," Noelle addressed the taller girl sitting across from her. "Did Akarsha do it?" 

"Yeah, she did it." 

"HEY! Don't sell me out! I thought we were true homies! Who's gonna be your best man at your wedding now?" 

"Noelle will." 

"...Touché. And by that I mean, TOUCH!"

Akarsha reached over and touched Noelle's nose.

Noelle froze in-place. 

She froze, but truthfully, she felt anything but cold...

Instead, an uncomfortable warmth spread across her body.

A terrible energy bubbled from her solar plexus, a nausea that left her with prickles at the tips of her fingers.

Her eyes quickly moved between Akarsha's outstretched hand and blurry fingertips to that smug, cat-like grin that had formed across the other girl's lips, to hovering long lashes and creased eyes that avoided her gaze (though, maybe she was the one doing the avoiding) until settling on the quiet, rhythmic movement at the crevice from neck to shoulder.

Her breathing staggered.

And, suddenly, Noelle felt distant from everyone else at the table, even herself.

It felt like she was watching a recording of a scene that had already taken place, as if she was a spectator on another planet underwater, bearing witness to the hollow murmurs of an old VHS tape--filled with contents of which she was already too familiar. 

_While she's distracted, Akarsha takes the opportunity to snatch the remaining grape._

_"Dude, that was dope!" Min calls out. _

_They fist-bump. _

_"Don't worry, I'll let you be my best man." _

_Diya looks on, unimpressed. _

_Akarsha grins and shakes her head at someone who looks like her. "Too slow."_

_She feels her body searching for the words, but in their place, she only finds a lump that has formed in the back of her throat, a planet-like bundle._

_She knew what to do._

_So she did what she always does._

Noelle quickly swallowed the lump and furrowed her brows.

And, with that, she could feel herself returning to her body; she was returning to earth.

She could feel the lump sinking, nestling up against the recesses of memory, burrowing.

"A-AKARSHA." 

Akarsha continued to smile mischievously at her.

"I make up my own rules as I go." 

She was immature and relentlessly annoying. 

"...I can tell." 

She frustrated Noelle to no end. 

But what Noelle hated most of all was how routinely she could bring herself back, yet still be faced with that quiet, unceasing flutter in pit of her stomach.

How it nagged at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Butterfly Soup validated my dislike of bitter melon. I am seen.
> 
> (Also, let's talk about how Noelle learned to look down on underpaid and undervalued labour from her mom, because that's really fucked. Sometimes I see dialogue and I'm like, "hmm, this is............. familiar.")
> 
> Next update by the end of December.


	4. Memory Pools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noelle dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the song by Foxes in Fiction, like the work title.
> 
> Initially this was "all I understand is that I don't understand," but I quietly swapped the chapter titles, because it felt more appropriate to name this one "Memory Pools." This chapter expands on a very brief mention near the beginning of the game, of Noelle getting sick at the pool when she and Diya were younger. I love thematic puns. 
> 
> CW for vomiting and drowning. Subject to major edits in the first 48-hours.

Noelle dreams. 

In her dream, memory rushes in like a sweeping current that leaks in and out of her pores--a glistening salt water.

She wishes she could be unaffected and stoic in its unwavering and unavoidable presence, but it is a saltiness that fails to be subdued; instead, it usurps her of every ounce of oxygen from her body. 

And she feels herself sink, as if her extremities have been filled with lead.

She feels salt water trickle down her nostrils and into her throat.

She curls inwards. 

She feels herself come undone and become soup-like, slippery--a bitter, sweet herbal that salt only seems to enhance; the viscosity fills her with overwhelming fear and dread. 

And against all odds, like the unfurling of cocoon to butterfly, she forms. It takes time, feeling achingly long yet somehow oddly delayed (of course, the temporal logics of dreams have always been uncertain). 

A version of her forms, you are forming. 

And soon she reemerges, many. 

You watch from afar. 

\--

Sometimes Noelle dreams about the first time she went to the pool for swimming lessons at Happy Fish Swim School. She was about eight, in the third grade.

"Swimming is a life skill." This statement from her father was inevitably paired with her mother's "you're lucky that we are giving you opportunities we could never dream of having" and more 'motivating' newspaper clippings of successful Taiwanese Americans. It was statements like these that were always the follow up to any reward or show of concern, and they were always contingent on a return--something to be repaid. 

It was Noelle's eventual understanding that her parents were good people just bad parents that would get her through negative experiences. She didn't know if this was logical, illogical or if it was merely her attempt to rationalize what she shouldn't, but it kept her from fully teetering into a bitterness that she felt had already enveloped her parents. Although, there were many moments where she could feel herself veering closer to their image, as if she would wake up one day and look at her reflection in the mirror and see her mother staring back at her, she knew she wasn't going to be like them. She shouldn't be, she didn't want to be. 

Noelle wasn't one to use metaphors, but nothing better described the feeling of being overwhelmed than one's submergence underwater and failure to reemerge.

She is at the pool. 

Water sweeps in and envelopes her body, inducing a fight-or-flight response.

It feels heavy.

She kicks to no avail, fixed in-place. 

Everything felt unnatural, stagnant, and so unlike the ebb and flow that was supposedly at the core of water's natural properties. Of course it was unnatural, though. A pool was merely a man-made structure meant to hold water. And this, of course, was just a dream, a memory of a memory. 

It wasn't surprising then or now that her efforts are futile. Even saying she's a terrible swimmer is an understatement. Even now, she is horrible at swimming.

...Sports really weren't for her. Even at the age of eight, she already knew this to be the case. Her body was made to live and one day die, not to participate in humanity's sadistic desire to fight the limits of body via the myth of athleticism.

For Noelle, the human body's inability to live a prolonged life underwater was a reflection of its inability to live outside of the limits of finite time; humans are not timeless beings; there was no going backwards, only forwards. She needed to get ahead. That's what she has known since her earliest years. She needed to be prepared as best as she could for adulthood. She needed to be better.

This was already becoming over-romanticized, too abstract. Everything in dreams was too abstract and uncertain. ...She wishes for the quiet of a dreamless sleep. 

Her parents never cared whether or not she was an amazing athlete (as long as it never negatively impacted her GPA). Athleticism wasn't the recognition they were vying for. It was too unrealistic, it spelled a poor long-term plan. Oftentimes, she overheard her parents speaking poorly of Diya, who, to them, was a 'nice, obedient girl' but 'lacked dedication.' Her interest in sports, to them, was merely a sign of future failure. It was strange. By association, they thought it strange that Noelle wanted to waste time away with the other girl. They never bothered to speak further, as another person's failure merely meant one less competitor for their daughter to face-off. Their moment of pity was insult blurred with kindness. The present, for them, was meant to be spent on investing in the future. 

In accordance to her parents' teachings, maths and sciences were always meant to be her priority. They were languages removed from the confusing and confounding tendencies of English, which instead limited them. Yet, whether or not others agreed (most, like Min, didn't), beyond being 'realistic' endeavours, Noelle discovered there was a strange beauty to mathematics and sciences. They didn't always need a purpose to exist and that was beautiful, that was enough. 

Carbon dioxide rises to the surface in bubbles. 

She knows how this will go. 

A hand reaches down and grasps her own, the other grips onto her waist.

It's Diya.

Despite Noelle being a good amount taller than Diya (for now), with her strength, she pulls her up and out.

They reemerge, two. 

Noelle falls into a coughing fit--her body's attempt to expel every last bit of the chlorinated water from her body. 

Her eyes blur, burn, ache and all she can do is blink.

The only sensation she is left with is nausea and the taste of salty tears mixed with sour and bitter, signs of vomit which threatens to rise.

Outside of her body, she feels an arm wrapped around her, massaging and patting her cold, damp back.

Had it not been for the arm wrapped around her, she would have believed she was still underwater thanks to her blurry vision, the saltiness of her tears and her water-filled ears causing her to hear everything in echoes and reverbs. 

Soon a warmth rushes across her body. She feels her already racing heart accelerate. She wishes she could hide away. 

Instead, she becomes self-conscious of the firm hand resting against her back, moving in slow, soothing, gentle waves--a rhythm that comes to be mark Diya's hugs and embraces simultaneously with both anxiety and comfort.

She swallows back the lump in her throat that threatens to emerge.

She says she swallows, but really, she retches. 

She heaves over a trash can. 

Thankfully there's a trash can, because she vomits... a lot. 

She thinks she hears Diya ask if she's alright, but she can't be too sure it happened at all.

But knowing how much Diya cares about her, she probably did ask and more. 

She knows Diya would have asked. 

And if she was in the right mind or position to say anything, Noelle's reply would have been: "Of course I'm not alright," affirming the obvious. But in feeling the jittering hand against her back, she recognizes Diya's genuine expression of fear for her well-being. Truthfully, Noelle knows she wouldn't have had it in her to say anything for fear her words might do more harm than good in being faced with an already terrible situation. She knows she didn't. 

Diya's care, her worry, her extended hand and pull, all the same, were a sign of her strength. 

She thinks she can hear Diya hold back tears. Yet, Diya continues to massage and pat her back. Despite her own panic, Diya continues. 

Part of Noelle doesn't mind the embarrassment of the situation, part of her does mind. At least, she can say this now.

But all of this, of course, is only a dream of a memory, or a memory of a memory. Its been filtered, tampered with over time through a mixture of conscious and unconscious processes. The brain is complex. (Her parents probably wouldn't mind if she became a neurosurgeon. With how complex the brain was, there would be an endless potential for discovery.)

Surely, she has already rewritten sensation upon sensation, added and redacted commentary. She knows this. 

In other versions of this dream, sometimes instead of pool water, it's newspaper clippings she's drowning in. In these versions of this dream, her parents are the ones cutting out newspaper articles, tossing them into the pool, inciting their daughter's own drowning. Alternatively, they are tossing the clippings into the water-filled pool with little regard for Noelle's current predicament and the increasingly waterlogged, illegible newsprint. 

Their eyes always remain fixed on her in such a way that she feels their presence even underwater--a pair of watchful eyes, stirring in ticks and tocks and in metronomic rhythm, demanding the timely end of her dream and her return to reality. To them, she has already wasted enough precious time, time she would never be able to get back.

Sometimes Min is there. Even smaller and younger, just like her and Diya. Min usually glares at her and Diya from afar, flipping the middle-finger at her and shouting profanities. In another version, Min even goes as far as showing up with a water gun. 

No one interferes with the same general frame of events, though. Regardless of any of these differences, Diya is there, extending a hand. 

She knows this. Yet, out of the corner of her eye, she spots Akarsha. 

...Why was she here? 

Akarsha looks just as Noelle knows her now, in contrast to her much younger self and Diya (not that she even knows what Akarsha looked like when she was eight). As per usual, she has her hair up in two buns and is wearing those leggings and that stupid flashy ski jacket, looking like she's a walking neon sign. ...At least her flip flops were finally appropriate footwear for her location. 

And all of a sudden, something shifts and she's watching from a distance.

She's sitting next to Akarsha, overlooking the scene as it unfolds. 

They're on the bleachers watching the younger Diya patting the back of a younger, vomiting Noelle. 

She turns to look at Akarsha, who is staring pensively at the now-empty pool.

...Even if this was just a 'dream', maybe she'd finally be able to air some of her grievances. 

"Do you remember that time you threw me into the school swimming pool? ...I told you to put me down; you said 'okay' and tossed me in. You still haven't apologized."

But Akarsha just sat there, idly swinging her legs, as if in a weak attempt to kick off her flip flops. 

"Why aren't you saying anything?!" She raised her voice at Akarsha.

To this, Akarsha merely responded by raising a hand and pointing towards the pool. 

"W-what?" 

And, to her astonishment, the pool water had transformed.

Butterflies were leaking in and out of the pool, as if together they were mimicking that natural fluid ebb and flow of water.

And again, she feels herself sink, as if her extremities have been filled with lead.

She curls inwards. 

She feels herself come undone and become soup-like. 

\--

Noelle awakens in a cold-sweat and with a tickle in the back of her throat.

She walks to the bathroom and opens the cabinet to grab the conveniently-placed bottle of Nin Jiom. She pours some in a spoon and quickly swallows. Just in case, for precaution, for a cold that she really should have foreseen. 

Diya was sick last week, so of course she was next. 

The syrup tastes sickly sweet and herbal, but familiar nonetheless. 

No matter how terrible Noelle felt when she woke up in the morning at 6:45am, her parents would send her to school.

She debates on whether or not to take the entire bottle on Nin Jiom with her, just to keep in her backpack or even put in her locker. 

And with little hesitation, she takes it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How might dreams allow for returns that are otherwise impossible? I wrote a bit about this in the end notes of chapter two, but I feel like Butterfly Soup's return to 2008 and the use of flashbacks is interesting, because, while it's not 'perfect,' it creates a space where thinking about the past is also thinking about other possible futures.
> 
> I think the celebration of representation and our investments in respectability politics are particularly fraught with violence that more often than not goes unrecognized. But what other forms of 'recognition' are possible? What other lives are possible? To draw on the limits of the closet metaphor, sometimes it's not just about making an 'exit' or even letting others 'in', but also about making difficult 'returns' to the messes that we un/wittingly inherit and must necessarily face if we are to be accountable to ourselves and each other. 
> 
> Anyway, there'll be one or two more chapters (unless I'm somehow wrong)! The ending may seem 'sudden' (especially if you're only just encountering this work now), but realistically this was never going to be a long narrative with an extensive overarching plot. Thank you to anyone who has followed along! The past 5-6 months I posted a lot, but will take a break when this work is done because I'm tired.


	5. Gravel to Tempo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We go back. The past reverberates, it eases us into a future in the midst of formation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to rewind to the beginning of freshman year. Chapter title from the Hayley Kiyoko song.
> 
> Consider supporting me @ ko-fi.com/lycchi. Anything is appreciated and if you can't right now, your kudos are just as meaningful.
> 
> Minor changes were made to chapter three for better flow between chapters, but re-reading shouldn't be necessary! **Check out Difficult Situations ch. 2 for a bit that didn't make the cut but takes place some time between this chapter and the next.**
> 
> Major edits within the first four days of posting.

Summer break always feels never ending, at least in the beginning.

Days and nights blur together in some weird, dreamlike amalgamation of "too warm, can't sleep" and "too warm can't stay awake", only for one to fade into another and become another-another again, then dissipate.

It is only when the end is near that everyone and everything you wish you could hold onto for fear of what a tomorrow that doesn't yet exist may bring begins to slip away.

But in longing and wanting, memory lingers, indulges her with its flutter-like flux.

She lets it run its course, lets every sensation, breath, thought and feeling settle into her body the way they always do.

It's an animacy only she knows, a hear-me-out without the consequences of saying or doing anything at all. 

And like lungs after pushing out air in less-than-gentle falls, they return, fall into place. And so she returns, drawing in those same, same longings. 

\--

It was almost 7 in the morning and Akarsha stood in front of the bathroom mirror with her toothbrush.

She already missed the comfort of her bed, not because she was sleepy. Despite being a night owl, unlike her younger sister, she was blessed with being an early riser and for that she was thankful (...though, just knowing that she HAD to wake up early made it even more difficult to stay in bed).

Maybe it made more sense to say that she missed the comfort of summer break. When it was summer, time dragged on strangely until it didn't; sometimes it felt like you weren't aging even though you were. If aliens existed, maybe on their home planets, earth's summer was the equivalent of a few days.

She missed summer, not because she had anything cool or exciting to get up to or dozens of people to see or meet. No, it was more about what she wished she could delay.

Akarsha rinsed her toothbrush and put it back in its place and reached for the Listerine; she couldn't start off the school year with her mouth smelling like scrambled eggs. (Or she could; it'd just give other kids even more reasons to not be....... 'eggstatic' when they have to interact with her.)

She was going to be a high school freshman and no matter how far away four years 'til graduation seemed, questions about her future from curious relatives or total strangers would only continue to increase exponentially.

And, of course, the only ones who knew not to ask about their futures were the ones being chided and questioned.

Even her older brother Rajindar knew not to ask. (But when did he have to fear about anything ever?) 

Most of their parents' attention over the past summer break was dedicated to preparing Raj for his future at Stanford and dragging Akarsha and Kavya along on congratulatory visits to and from tireless relatives, who had other underlying motivations to fulfill--mainly their burning desire to know how he did it and what the real key to his success was. What other answer could Raj give besides "work hard" when the truth was much, much harsher and contradicted their very reason for being? Unhappy with his responses, probably because of a mix of language barriers and its vagueness, they'd ask again and again becoming more and more insincere about it, not that it ever amounted to what any of them hoped for.

It wasn’t odd for Raj to receive as much attention as he did from their parents (and their entire extended family) to begin with. Being the eldest prodigal son of three kids made him and their parents very lucky, whether Akarsha liked it or not.

And she didn't. 

After all, how could she not be jealous of how much better they seemed to treat him compared to her, at least sometimes?

It’s not like she didn’t care about his hopes, dreams or whatever the hell it was. She wasn’t that shitty of a person (at least, not yet, probably).

Whatever it was, everything, he made it look like it was just easy to do things right and not screw up. Raj graduated top of the class without it even ever being his intention; all of the other awards were just add-ons. And if he could do it, couldn't she get to something close if she 'really' tried and was a little or a lot of something else, her parents reassert again and again with their usual enthusiasm and goofy gestures. According to their parents, there was no end point for how hard a person could try; the world was as fair as you made it out to be. Their optimism was cruel.

Akarsha finished gargling and spat out the Listerine, watching the unnaturally bright blue liquid slowly roll down the sink until she caught sight of something disappointing. 

Akarsha sighed at the sight of her limp, wavy strands of hair awkwardly framing her face. Volumizing shampoo and conditioner seemed to do little to nothing to give her hair the lift they promised. (Though, it probably didn't help that she went to bed with damp hair.) There wasn't much to work with, so Akarsha divided her hair into two sections and combed upwards, pulling the first section towards the top of her head. She gently twisted it into a bundle and secured it with an elastic and two bobby pins and began working on the other half of her hair. She liked to think that the buns gave the illusion of more voluminous locks, but whether or not it actually did, she liked it styled this way. 

Just watching Raj frustrated her, sometimes it pissed her off... It only made how half-assed she was moving through life more obvious no matter how hard she tried, if not to the world and her parents, then to herself.

But watching him scared her more than anything. What scared Akarsha most about watching her brother prepare to go off to college was that she couldn’t even tell if he was _actually_ happy. Did he even know if he was happy? Had it ever occurred to him to ask this question? Did it matter enough to him or to anyone else--to their parents, to their aunts, uncles, their grandparents, their dead ancestors or Akarsha even?

How’s someone who’s only a few years older than her supposed to know what he’s doing with his life and not somehow just fuck it all up and light it on fire?? 

Maybe that was what was most overwhelming about it all. It was a reflection of their parents’ soon-to-be-- No, their already persisting hopes for Akarsha--a pressure that was going to follow her throughout high school, whether she liked it or not. This was normal. 

Akarsha stood in front of the bathroom mirror and carefully inspected her reflection. Teeth - check, hair - check, face - ...could be worse, outfit - she's great love her, backpack - on. 

Now to contact Diya.

**Akarsha:** ayyy

**Akarsha:** ay diya

**Akarsha:** you awake??

**Diya:** what. ...ur outside my house?

**Akarsha:** yaa dud

**Akarsha:** dudueudueudud

**Akarsha:** dudjsfklsjdk

**Akarsha:** dude. 

**Diya logged off.**

\--

Just from looking at Diya, it was easy to tell she was far from a morning person and her disinterest in fussing over her looks worked in her favour.

It didn't surprise Akarsha that her parents wanted her to befriend someone she had little in common with.

"Hey Diya." 

"What?" 

"Would you kiss a girl for one million dollars?"

"On the cheek?"

"..."

"Sure... Yea. That." 

If anything, Diya seemed to be facing a similar predicament. It's not like Akarsha didn't know her parents were hoping that by associating with the taller, "well-mannered" (their words, not hers), drop-dead gorgeous (ok, this was all her) girl, some of her not-garbagey essence (also her words) would somehow rub off on her. But if they were gonna be stuck together, they might as well not be miserable about it when there was plenty of time and other reasons for them to be miserable in the near future. 

Diya was like a pretty, hot, buff statuette, someone who seemed to be leagues above everyone else. That is, until she laid on the ground, playing dead. It's like she took the 'drop-dead' part of drop-dead gorgeous too literally by giving her the world's best first impression and weren't first impressions forever? ...Like, imagine being so garbagey someone's gotta pretend they're dead just to not interact with you.

After screaming for a whole two minutes, Akarsha's first thought was to check if Diya was still breathing and check for a pulse. Upon discovering Diya was very much still alive (...with the way she was scrunching her eyes closed, she couldn't _not_ be alive), Akarsha's thought process went from "man, this girl's a freak" to "I like that" in a split second and was followed by her grabbing a couple of ice cubes from the freezer and sticking them down the back of the other girl's hoody, because how could she not get back at her for 'scaring' her?? She wasn't scared for real, it's not like she actually thought Diya was dead, but, with her luck, sometimes you're better off assuming the worst before shit hits the fan.

Unironically, the result was the most animated she had seen Diya since their parents left them unattended. She would _pay_ to see it again. Sure, Akarsha got whacked and Diya definitely wasn't even using 100% of her strength and it _still_ hurt like a bitch, and sure the fiasco ended with her younger sister Kavya entering the room with very poor timing, but it was easily one of her top three most funniest memorable moments from a summer that dragged on until it didn't of course. Her sister was definitely scarred for life, though. Poor girl flung her yellow sticky hands toy onto the ceiling and shrieked for a whole two minutes and has since then quivered in fear at Diya's presence. Akarsha's joke about it looking like a pee stain from where they're standing probably didn't help, but hey, in her heart, she knows that if her sister was in the same position as her, she'd make the same joke; don't knock it 'til you've tried it. 

Unfortunately, a mostly funny memory was ruined when their parents stepped in. They never showed up when Akarsha was the one screaming, but maybe she wouldn't take herself seriously either if she was in their position and maybe that kinda sucked too that she felt that way. Their parents were 'nice', avoided hostile confrontations, and others (mostly other kids) always said that they were surprisingly easygoing, but maybe that was because they were so good at believing they could lighten whatever burn or seething word they offered their children, that all could be improved if you 'really tried' and then all would be well and okay and not shitty or terrible and absolutely the worst. Always jovial, Akarsha and Kavya's dad 'lightened' the mood by reassuring Diya's parents that all was alright and there were "no serious injuries", but when things were 'okay', it always had to be at someone else's expense and among parents there were always comparisons. A "sorry my kids just get a little over excited" was merely the opener for a wink "try not to take after your older sister too much" wink and only seemed to open the floor for a "no it's okay, I'm sorry she's like _this_." Like a hand that holds one at a distance but never far away enough to be completely out of view, parents were apologetic to each other and kids were apologetic for existing. 

Anyway, Diya didn't say a whole lot, not because she had nothing to say but because she seemed to be perpetually anxious and cautious. But maybe this was the start of a beautiful friendship or maybe this was exactly what happened when your parents picked your friends. Or both.

Though, today she seemed to be particularly on-edge.

"Say, what do you wash your face with?" 

"...Huh? Yeah." 

"No, I _said_, what do you use to wash your face?" 

"I just splash my face with cold water."

Really?!

Diya looked at her with suspicion. 

"...You're kidding me, right? Where's the humour in that?? You're joking with me right now man, man, that ain't even funny, man. Not funny, man! Life's unfair. Nothing new."

"..."

"You're weird."

\--

Their school was a short walking distance away from their neighbourhood. And thank god it was. 

Everyone was gathered in front of the doors, hovering over sheets of paper announcing homerooms. Diya easily towered over everyone there, even the guys. 

"!!" Diya's eyes lit up with a glimmer of excitement. Her giddy smile was both a sight for sore eyes and something Akarsha had never seen before. What was she so happy about?

Akarsha stood on her tippy toes. 

Shit.

Akarsha could barely even see the list with all the people in the way. Fuck. All these nerds, worried about their first day of high school. ...Not that she wasn't included in that group.

"Hey, do a homie a favour 'n check what room I'm in?"

With little effort, Diya glanced back towards the lists of names and answered Akarsha with a dull look, "Same as me." 

".......And thaaaaat'ssss??" 

"Ms. Lau. Room 103."

"K. Thanks, babe."

"Don't call me that." 

"K, sugar, honey, egg, flour, baby ...rabies."

Diya continued to stare at her blankly, as if somehow expressing her disappointment. She couldn't be sure though, especially when she seemed pretty zoned on the walk to school.

"Anywho, I gotta take a wizz. Catch you in class." 

"...Okay." 

Akarsha skipped to the girl's washroom. 

\--

Who was Diya talking to? Another girl?

Diya didn't just walk up to a complete stranger and start talking, _she'd_ know. It took, like, a whole five meetings for her to actually start responding to her. 

Didn't look like anyone familiar, not that Akarsha was 'well-connected'. With her brother going off to college, her parents had to downsize their house, hauling her and her younger sister's asses to an entirely new neighbourhood. They didn't move far; in fact, they were only a 15-20 minute drive from their old house, but it was a different school district.

It looked like 2008 was the year of fresh starts, like, only an entire eight months in. She didn't have to expect anything strikingly new, same mostly Asian populace or whatever. But, while moves like this were normally stressful for kids, she felt like she was a little too old to care.

No, that was a lie.

Everyone else already had too much on their plates to worry about, so why make it worse than it already was? Kavya who was about to start middle school, on the other hand, was very vocal about her frustrations. Their parents' morning quips weren't working and of course they weren't.

With her back facing her, it was hard to get a good look at the girl; she had her black hair pulled back into a long, neat single braid that trailed her back. She was wearing a tannish brown cardigan and a navy collared knee-length dress, unflatteringly paired with light blue and gray runners and seemed to have jarringly perfect posture. A definite, straight-laced nerd. This wasn't helped by the way Diya looked like she was slouching next to her on purpose. Ah, the woes of being tall. 

Wait... Was this who Diya was so excited about?

Why? _How_?

...Well, they do say first impressions are the only impressions. 

"Diya, are you alright?" the girl looked at the taller girl with a look of concern.

"Just... nervous. New people, same people." 

"Ya man, you look a little tense. Want me to massage your shoulders?" Akarsha took the opportunity to jump in. 'Cause why not? She'd have the pleasure (or more likely displeasure) of making the acquaintance of whoever the hell this was either way thanks to being stuck in the same homeroom, whether anyone liked it or not. 

"Who are you." the other girl glared at Akarsha and spoke in a prim but pointed manner. (Okay, she already hated her, no she _definitely_ hated her, but maybe Akarsha already hated her a little too.) She turned back to Diya, "do you know her? Is she bothering you? Do we need to call the authorities to remove her?" 

Wow Jesus... What was she, her mom?? 

"Who am I?? If you must know, they call me... _Salmonella_. Y'know, 'cause I'm here to ruin your life. Give you diarrhea and shit. HAH, get it. Diya, give me five." Akarsha stuck out her hand and signalled Diya to give her a high five, only to be ignored. 

"..."

"Not doing it." 

"Fine, be that way." Well, at least she wasn't getting the silent treatment this time.

"That's not a real name." From her tone alone, Akarsha could already tell she was the sort of person who loved stating the obvious--a smartass. A total stickler, who'd probably remind her teachers about the homework. She probably wouldn't be opposed to correcting her teachers with a 'well, actually' either. Absolutely the worst. 

"Hey man, don't invalidate my culture. Bacteria have rights."

"Yes, the right to be eradicated."

_Touché_. 

"Anyway, I never claimed that was my real name, that's just what they call me."

"Oh. If that is what 'they call you', in that case, I am not at all surprised," the other girl stated matter-of-factly. 

..._Huh_...

Maybe she does have a sense of humour, just a really, really mean one. 

"Ay, I don't normally tell people, but for you, babe, I just might."

"Enough. Why are you being so needlessly obstinate? GET ON WITH IT." 

"My name, it's..." Akarsha paused grimly, "Sasuke Uchiha, from the Village of the Hidden Leaves. My favourite food is tomatoes. My older brother murdered my whole family--"

"THERE IS NO WAY THAT IS YOUR NAME." 

Akarsha shook her head at the girl. "Beggars can't be choosers. For 50 cents, I'll give you the rest of my backstory." 

"...This is Akarsha. She's the one my parents are making me walk to school with." Diya finally intervened.

"Excuse _you_. My parents are also making me walk with you. Say, what's it like knowing the first face you'll see everyday after you wake up to go to school every morning will be mine for the next four years?? What's it like being that blessed." 

"I see my parents every morning."

"Boo. You're no fun!" 

"Diya, are you certain I do not need to call the authorities...?"

"..." Diya sighed. 

"Akarsha, this is Noelle." 

"Diya and I have known each other since kindergarten." 

Akarsha was a little jealous. She couldn't say she's had a friendship to her name that's lasted to that extent. Then again, neither of them seemed like the sort to make friends easily (full offence), so maybe they just didn't have any other friends? 

"Wow, childhood friends. That's, like, hella_\-- _Wait, hold it, your name....." Akarsha snorted, "it's Noelle??"

"Yes? ...And what might you find so hilarious about that." Noelle furrowed her brows. 

"But isn't that French?"

"What." 

"Your name, I mean. You're Asian, like, who named you??" Akarsha guffawed. 

"My parents." 

"And what? Did they christen you with a baguette or something?????"

"That is complete and utter nonsense. I cannot even begin to comprehend any of the words that are coming out of your mouth."

'Can-not com-pre-hend', what is she, a robot?? It's been bothering her since they started talking, but she sounds so mechanical. It's like she's carefully pronouncing every syllable. 

"Ok. I got it. What do you say when you gotta use the washroom?"

"...What purpose does this question serve--"

"THAT YOU HAVE TO _OUI OUI? _HAH." Akarsha clapped loudly and cackled.

"Stop it... STOP." Noelle raised her voice. 

"Aaaaannnnddd what are you gonna do about it if I don't?? Just what are you gonna do?" 

"STOP. NO, I DEMAND YOU PUT AN END TO THIS BUFFOONERY AT ONCE."

"I DE-MAND YOU PU-T AN END TO THIS BU-FOON-ER-Y AT ONCE. BEEP BOOP."

"This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. I could leave any time." 

"And abandon poor Diya?? Why not join the club? Hmm... No. Wait ...French.... Frenchie? Nah. Something that packs a punch, it's gotta be perfect. ...I GOT IT! Frenchman." 

"WHAT?!"

Akarsha spots something by the chalkboard. Yes, yes. Perfect. She grabbed it and hid it behind her back.

"I hereby christen thee......... Frenchman." Akarsha waved around the wooden yardstick, whacking Noelle on the head and shoulders. 

"OW. STOP IT. OUCH. STOP. I REFUSE TO LET YOU CALL ME THAT."

"You can't refuse. I've already christened you. It's official. Done. Too late--" 

And something changes.

Akarsha feels a gaze holding her in place, her eyes are skittish, try to be anywhere not here.

But your eyes, they never waver. They accept each moment as it passes, maybe even linger.

They urge her forward.

Her breathing stifles. 

\--

Akarsha wakes up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More DiyaAkarsha (She Plays Bass by beabadoobee energy), y/y.
> 
> Thank you for your well wishes and for 400+ hits, 40+ kudos and feedback! <3 It means a lot. 
> 
> I'm not 100% about this chapter, but maybe it's enough that I'm even 30% okay with it.
> 
> Both Akarsha and her younger sister screaming for a whole two minutes is them sharing the same braincell. Kavya 'got' (i.e. stole) the sticky hand from the treasure box at the dentist; nobody (not even Diya) is able to get it down from the ceiling. Diya feels bad and embarrassed about the whole thing (she correctly blames Akarsha partly though for the ice cubes). When she hears about Kavya's birthday, Diya ends up giving her another sticky hand toy (in her fav colour yellow) to apologize and is instantly forgiven. Diya gives Kavya piggybacks and is very happy to be praised for her strength. However, Akarsha jokingly asks for a piggyback in the same tone a cisboy stranger asks "where's my hug"; to make Kavya happy, Diya piggybacks them both at the same time. Diya with little effort can lift them both, but, unfortunately, Akarsha does not have the muscle to hold onto Kavya and they tumble. It's an absolute mess. Akarsha makes a bad joke about anime training weights to downplay what a bad idea it was and ends up showing Diya the infamous Rock Lee vs. Gaara chunin exam clip in full 240p glory (and Diya kinda loves it). .....Maybe I should've just written a whole story about how Diya and Akarsha meet? Maybe one day. 
> 
> Fun fact: the worst part about writing this chapter was having to conjure up an unfashionable outfit for Noelle, who probably, despite having a wardrobe filled with subdued, conservative tones/textures, does not know how to pair things. I'm mean, but am I wrong?
> 
> At first I was going to write something that explicitly mirrored the previous chapter, but I wanted this chapter to be closer to how flashbacks as dreams are portrayed in the game. My understanding of Akarsha is that she is more willing to immerse herself in her feelings, but is not necessarily willing to accept the vulnerability that comes with being honest and not turning things into a joke, so she'd rather be insincere (think along the lines of "They are my emotions to feel/ Nobody can poison my feelings if they're never revealed" from Hayley Kiyoko's Mercy / Gatekeeper); the problem is she sucks at hiding how she feels and becomes overwhelmed. Noelle is repressed but the more she unlearns and the world opens up to her, she tries to suppress in a way that mimics that familiar repression, so her dreams walk the line between detached and visceral. Also, both Noelle and Akarsha are very annoying even though they both (...mostly and sometimes debatably) mean well. Diya is stressed about the imminent self-introductions and seeing how easily those two can have a back-and-forth despite being strangers makes it WAY worse and they do nothing to help. This is long-winded.
> 
> There is one chapter left.
> 
> And if I'm somehow wrong, I tried. An anagram for "I tired." : ( 
> 
> I start a film thing in a couple of months if things go as planned. I will try to have this done before then, but won't make any promises.
> 
> Take care.


	6. REGARDING THE FINAL UPDATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I'm really sorry that I've had to make two updates like this in a year. 
> 
> My plan was to have the update ready for the end of April or beginning of May; while this isn't an obligation and I mostly do this for fun, I wanted to complete this work in a timely manner. Recently, however, I received news that my close family member was dying (they have already passed). I've spent the past week and a half feeling emotionally exhausted and like everything is awful and even though I've tried, I can't focus on writing. I need time to process things, but also to support those who need me the most right now.
> 
> I'm excited to share the last chapter(s) when it's ready; for now, please be patient with me. I promise I will not leave this work incomplete. Thank you again for all of your kudos, comments and support. I'm grateful.

*Please read the note in the chapter summary.

EDIT (2020 October 3): There's a very low chance anyone will see this because I don't want to have to keep doing non-update updates, but see my post about [Shibe](https://lycchi-writes.tumblr.com/post/625008758451568640/about-shibe-updated) for 'non-spoiler' spoilers. Feel free to guess why it's relevant.

There will be an update soon. It'll just be one chapter. It's text-heavy compared to the last five chapters, so it's taking a while to write the scenes and edit. The next/final chapter will be published at a later date.


End file.
